


Here s Just a Taste of The Ideas

by crowry



Series: Brave as a Noun [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, Grey-A, HP: EWE, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 09:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/847945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowry/pseuds/crowry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This has been a long time coming, and it will be a long time going, as well. Draco thinks it might be in a prophecy somewhere that he's meant to be fucked up over Harry Potter. He also thinks--based on past experience--that Harry Potter is probably worth the trouble. Or, five firsts in fucking: an overview of trust in progress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here s Just a Taste of The Ideas

Neither of them is in the mood to get drunk, but Harry has found a stack of tapes of old X-Files episodes in a shop, so they put in one of those and Harry spreads out his coursework on the table, dislodging some of the wand core theory Draco has left there over the past few weeks. Ollivander is working him hard, but he's working himself harder. When Harry asks him why he doesn't take it easy, Draco won't dignify him with an answer, but the reason is that it's _interesting_. He doesn't expect Harry to understand. Harry could barely carve a wand, if Ollivander is to be believed.

They get back to Harry's after dinner at Luna's, and Draco settles onto the sofa as Harry fiddles with the tedious magic adapter fixed to his television. The feeling that's been edging into their evenings together is back full force for Draco, that he is on the precipice of doing something stupid, but he just flings his boots into a corner with Harry's dingy trainers and watches American FBI agents muddle through a series of alarming but fake alien encounters.

Harry occasionally pauses in reading his textbook to give the show his full attention, and at half eight he gives up entirely. He slams the book closed, _accios_ his notes into a disorderly stack, then stands and stretches. His shirt is disproportionately wide, showing an excess of collarbone and the smooth, dark skin of his stomach, the bottom of his ribs as the edge of the shirt lifts with his stretch. The sight causes a lurch of heat in Draco, but also annoyance. Half of Harry's wardrobe fits him poorly; the shirts have holes or rips or odd stains and, if Weasley is to be believed, are relics from his Hogwarts years, hand-me-downs from his Muggle relatives. Draco watches him roll his head around on his neck and fling his arms around wildly.

"Stop flailing," he says, "I can't see the screen."

It's true, but not because he's blocking it. Draco cannot pay attention to Agent Fox Mulder when Harry is contorting himself around and groaning with relief.

Harry doesn't call him out on the half-truth, though Draco thinks he must know. He just flops down next to Draco on the couch and looks sedately at the television, chewing his lips. He frowns occasionally, fidgets with his hands, and at the end of the episode he disappears into the kitchen for a cup of tea.

"Do you want one?" he says, the clatter of cupboards and mugs and running water audible through the thin wall separating the sitting room from his cramped kitchen. Draco does, but Harry always makes it wrong, so he heaves himself off the couch and shoves at the arm of it with his hip so he can make it through the door, into the hall. All of Harry's furniture is cramped to the point of ridiculousness, especially for someone as wealthy as Harry, and as talented a wizard. He refuses, however, to get any sort of expanding permit from the Ministry (he refuses to do anything with the Ministry, unless it involves Weasley or the Minister himself), and will not risk any structural transfiguration without it. Draco finds it odd and strangely endearing that the man who faced Voldemort so bravely, so many times, will not break a minor law so that his sofa will fit comfortably in his sitting room.

"You need to get a bigger flat," Draco tells him, once he's squeezed past the kitchen door. The kitchen door is similarly blocked by Harry's dinged wooden table and chairs. "I know you have the gold for it."

"Er, yeah," Harry says. He steps away from the counter, holding a mug of what looks like his usual (disgustingly over-steeped black tea), so that Draco has space to make his own. "But it's—"

He doesn't say what it is, just frowns thoughtfully when Draco looks at him. Draco knows he dislikes spending his money, and does not ask him to elaborate. The words _we could get one together_ want to jump out of his throat, so he busies himself removing his tea leaves and rinsing them down the sink, adding sugar with a questionably clean spoon, and gulping down a still-too-hot mouthful. It burns his tongue and throat, making his eyes water. Harry doesn't seem to notice.

They've been friends for years, now. Draco has seen Harry grow out of his frustrated, restless stage and into his restless, collegiate stage. He's watched him grow into his skin. Three years ago they hid in Muggle pubs to drink quietly, away from the Wizarding world, and learned to understand each other. They held either of Luna's hands as she watched Xenophilius's ashes blow away into the fields of bright sunflowers. Draco attended Harry's best friends' wedding a few months ago at his invitation. Harry had not had a date, and Draco has not brought this up because the implications are dangerous. Harry invites him to his place most nights a week, where they watch TV or study or eat before Draco returns to his own home. They often drink together still, but now mostly at Luna and Draco's place, with her and Dean, and whichever other of their friends is around, or at Harry's, where it is mostly just them.

A year ago, even, it was a surprise when they encountered each other at Grimmauld Place, both there to see Teddy. Now they coordinate and visit together, bringing sweets or toys or other gifts, Draco visiting with his aunt while Harry runs around the courtyard with Teddy, both of them shouting in play. Teddy asks for them as a unit, and this past Christmas, Draco had been present when Harry bought Teddy's gift, and had advised him heavily on which toy broom he ought to buy.

Draco knows Harry's course schedule, and also his grades, and what courses he will have to take next term. Harry knows that Draco is experimenting with combination wand cores, and that Ollivander is frustrated with his single-minded focus on innovation. Harry has been with him to visit his mother. Harry asks after her often, has done for years now, but lately Draco thinks it might be more than a pleasantry. Lately, he suspects Harry really _cares_ , that he cares deeply about Narcissa's health, and her happiness.

Draco has thought of Luna as his best friend for years, but she's something else, something a bit stronger than that. She makes him eat, makes him grieve, and makes him _Draco_. She's his anchor. They taught each other to stand. Harry, he realizes with some surprise, is his best friend.

Or, he would be, if Draco didn't want so badly to kiss him.

He has other friends, of course. Sometimes he has Gregory now, though he mistrusts Draco's progress as a person. He has Pansy and Blaise respectively when they occasionally return from abroad, and he has Dean and Viktor, who love Luna almost as much as Draco does. Mystifyingly, he also seems to have the Weasley family, now including Hermione, and even Ginevra, who has finally stopped hexing him on sight.

Harry is the reason he is not in Azkaban still, and possibly the reason for most of the other good things in his life, Luna excluded. Luna is there because of Luna.

"Draco," Harry says now, waving a hand in front of his face. He flinches, and spills tea over his fingers.

"What?"

"Welcome back," he says. The way he's smiling at Draco is unbearable in the ugly Muggle fluorescent lights, a lopsided quirk of his lips around slightly coffee-stained teeth. Draco's stomach tightens and he knows the precipice has been surpassed. He is no longer _about_ to do something stupid, he is in the process of doing it.

He sets his tea on the counter, then takes Harry's from his hands and places it carefully next to his own. Harry is still smiling at him, though he looks bemused now.

Shaking, Draco reaches out and cups the back of Harry's neck, where he has imagined the black hair to be the softest, and pulls Harry towards him. He kisses him. For an excruciating moment, he knows that this is the end—he has ruined it. He has taken without asking again, and he will regret it, but Harry slips his hands around Draco's waist and presses him back against the counter. He opens his mouth to the kiss and deepens it.

Draco lets his hands feel Harry's slight shoulders under his ugly shirt, the slope of his back, and eventually Harry steps away, hands on Draco's shoulders. They are both a little short of breath.

"Draco," he says, and bows his head, pressing the ridge of his eyes into the side of Draco's neck. Draco wraps him into a hug, which would have been foreign to him before Luna. But Luna has taught him the importance of touch.

There are things Draco knows about Harry that he did not learn from him. (Hermione is especially bad at not saying things to people she knows Harry trusts, and has made Draco swear not to tell him he knows.) He knows that since Ginevra broke it off with Harry in the August of 1999, he has not had another relationship. One would think he would have found someone in the four years since then, being who he is, but he has not. When Molly Weasley asks after his love life, he looks wooden and unhappy. Hermione did not have to tell Draco this, because he has seen it happen in person many, many times.

"I thought," he confesses now, "Maybe you don't see other people because—because I'm here. And I wanted it to be that."

Harry raises his head to stare at Draco, intense green eyes inches from his. They are not quite sharing breath. "I'm," he starts, then shakes his head. "It's complicated. I'm complicated," he says, sounding angry.

Which, of course, is just like him. "Don't you dare start a sulk," Draco tells him sharply. "I'm kissing you."

He opens his mouth to argue, and Draco does kiss him, finding Harry's hands with his own and squeezing them. Harry kisses back again, and Draco can feel the frustration in it, the way he can always feel his frustration anymore, but closer, more concentrated.

When they pull away again, they are both breathing raggedly, and Harry looks ready to break into a rage. Draco can feel his erection against his thigh. "I'm trying to tell you, I don't know if I'm whole, you know."

"I _don't_ know," Draco says. He doesn't know what he means at all.

"I'm trying to _tell you_ ," Harry says, shoving a little at Draco's chest without moving away. "Merlin, just shut up for once. I'm saying I don't know if I can—be sexual. I couldn't, before. I don't know."

Draco looks at him as if he will find elaboration in his eyes, or his heavy brows, or the scar on his head, and stupidly says, "But you're interested."

"Yes," Harry breathes, "I am."

Draco takes a deep, shuddering breath, and steps sideways away from Harry. "Explain," he says, gesturing to the kitchen table. Harry looks miserable.

Ten minutes later finds them sitting with reheated tea and in mild distress. Draco is no longer hard, but the icy disappointment that had permeated his being minutes ago is gone as well.

"But even with Ginny," Harry is saying, "It was fine when I was—when it was me, doing things," he says, and Draco rolls his eyes a little bit. "But as soon as she'd go to suck me off," (he says this harshly and with conviction, and Draco thinks it's for his benefit more than Harry's) "I couldn't."

"You'd go soft?" Draco asks, frowning. Harry has been speaking about this circuitously, about how it's _him_ , it's definitely something wrong with _him_ , for minutes now. He shakes his head.

"It's not like that," he whispers. "I just. I panic. And before you say I'm just virginal—"

"I wasn't going to," Draco says, offended.

"—it wasn't like that. We did. We fucked around a lot before, in sixth year. But afterwards I couldn't."

Draco still doesn't understand. It's a dizzying amount of information—his relationship with Ginevra, the reason he hasn't been seeing people, and the enormity of his self hatred, which he has laid out very plainly. He doesn't understand and he does. Because Harry is always the first to offer to do things--to make tea, to _accio_ a lost thing, to carry a bag, to perform a spell, or pick up the tab. And Draco had, for ages, chalked it up to a desire for attention, for thanks, but he knows now that Harry wants neither of these things. On the occasions when things are done for him, at Christmas and his birthday and the various memorial events he attends quietly and grudgingly, he is visibly uncomfortable. It is difficult for him to accept gratitude and gifts, even the most simple ones.

"You don't like to be touched," Draco guesses.

"Something like that."

"Snogging?"

"That's okay," he says, and Draco wonders if he understands after all. "If you—I'd. Like to suck you off," Harry says, and the room feels airless, and his eyes are dark. Draco crams his eyes shut and holds up a hand, attempting to stifle the image his mind is supplying. It is not a new fantasy. But this is real, and he has initiated it. He thinks he knew that Harry would be complicated in this, because nothing involving Harry Potter has ever made his life easier. He hopes Harry will be worth it; he has never not been in the past.

"Stop. Harry, I need to understand this. I need to understand _you_."

"I—"

"If I ask questions, will you answer them?"

Harry looks startled, but nods.

"Say—hypothetically. You blow me. What happens after that?"

Harry shrugs. "What usually happens?"

Draco feels his jaw clench in frustration. "I'd return the favor. Would that be okay?"

He stares at Draco. He's hard, Draco can see he's getting hard again, and he's in a similar state himself. Harry is shit at explaining things and this is something they _need_ to talk about. If they're going to do this, he doesn't want to hurt Harry. He doesn't want to be hurt, either.

Harry thinks about what he has asked for much longer than Draco expected, his eyes never leaving Draco's face.

"I don't know," he admits. "It might not be."

Draco opens his mouth, still frustrated, and Harry speaks over him. "I'm not being coy, Draco, I just. I really don't fucking _know_. I think—with you it might be okay. But _I don't know_."

"With me," he says.

Harry nods, looking at him in the way he does sometimes, direct and affectionate, rife with intent. Draco wants him so much, has for months—longer, even—and whatever it is that Harry is, difficult or complicated, whatever, Draco still wants him. Draco thinks he has wanted nothing so much as he has wanted Harry's attention.

"Can we," Draco says. "Can we try? And if it's bad for you, we can stop."

Harry looks apprehensive. "And if it's bad for you?"

"It's not an Unbreakable Vow, Harry. It's sex." It comes out a little harsher than he means it, but Harry is used to him, and looks reassured.

He repeats Draco's words back to him. "You're sure you're still interested?"

Draco feels something like thunder inside him, powerful enough to make Harry's shitty Muggle lamps flicker. "Harry, I know it's very difficult for you," he says evenly, "but don't be stupid."

He stands, letting the chair scrape back across the floor, and Harry does the same. They stare at eachother for a moment before Harry leaves the kitchen. Draco follows.

The atmosphere as they make their way up the small staircase and into the bedroom is charged with intent, and they've barely stepped through the door when Harry pulls Draco onto the bed, his hands going for the buttons of his robes immediately. He has tried for months now not to think about this, tried not to imagine what Harry will be like in bed, and always failed. He has brought himself off imagining Harry gentle and searching, and imagining him pliant beneath him, and the taste of him, and he thinks it might be in a prophecy somewhere that he's meant to be fucked up over Harry Potter.

Draco has been in his bedroom before—usually to help him dress for special events, where he is the guest of honor or a memorial speaker, because Draco's conscience will not allow him to let Harry leave his flat in his normal fashion when he'll be seen by so many people. He's slept in Harry's bed once or twice, but more often on his sofa, and always drunk.

This is not like those times. Harry has Draco's robes off impressively quickly, with a deftness of hands that must be, like everything else, natural talent. Draco has only to tug Harry's shirt over his head before they're both bare chested, and he punctuates each movement with a kiss. Harry drags him closer, and kisses him more deeply, his hands smoothing over Draco's back.

Draco wonders, for a moment, when it will be too much. At what point will Harry reach his limit? Harry seems predisposed to blame himself, and not Draco, but that thought gives him no comfort. He wants to touch, and is worried to. His worry disappears with Harry's hand on his cock, and he grinds into the touch and groans into Harry's mouth, smiling. Harry fumbles with the fastenings of Draco's trousers and shoves them down around his thighs, pants and all.

He grabs Draco's cock and pulls at it, the feeling incredible but odd. Draco has fucked around, but not much, and none of _them_ were Harry Potter. He did not want any of them this much.

Harry shifts down beneath him, hands on Draco's abdomen, until Draco is kneeling over his chest. He leans up and takes Draco's cock into his mouth, kissing around the head and laving the underside with his tongue, one hand still smoothing up Draco's side, the other sliding up the inside of his thigh to cup his balls. Draco supports himself over Harry with one arm so he can use his free hand to reach down and touch Harry's face.

"Harry," he whispers, but he's not even sure what he means to say. Everything is Harry's mouth stretched over his cock, his glasses pressing occasionally into Draco's thigh, his hands on Draco's skin.

Harry's mouth is perfect on him, his tongue hot and intent. Draco nearly forgets the conversation that has preceded this, does forget it as Harry pushes his cock through his fist, tonguing the tip of it before sucking him down again and sliding his now-slick hand back to Draco's ass, where he circles searching fingers around his hole. Draco comes with a groan between Harry's lips, unable to warn him.

Harry slides back up the bed and kisses him, his mouth wet with Draco's come, and they lie there contentedly for several moments before Draco reaches for Harry's cock, intending to at least jack him off. He isn't thinking. He slides his thumb across the head of it, and this is when things go badly. Harry grabs Draco's wrist and his eyes fly open. Draco freezes, nearly stops breathing as he remembers why he absolutely should not have touched without asking.

"No, no, no—Stop," Harry says, quickly, pleading, "stop, stop—don't," and he slides out of Draco's grasp, and sits up. He pulls his legs up to his chest and digs his fingers into his eyes under his glasses.

Draco sits back on his heels and stares, dread making him soft. "Harry?"

Harry gives a shaky sigh. "I'm sorry," he says.

"Don't," Draco tells him. "Don't be, it was my fault, I'm sorry—"

"I don't think it's anyone's fault," Harry says. They sit in silence for a moment, Harry taking deep breaths and Draco watching him, wondering when it will be alright to touch him again. Harry doesn't seem to be blaming him, as Draco thought he wouldn't. It does worry him that he has caused this out of lack of thought, but the relief he feels in knowing that Harry doesn't blame him, that he won't hold it against him, is physical.

"Harry." Harry removes his fingers from his eyes and looks over. Even in the dim light, his eyes reflect brightest green behind his glasses, enormously expressive. Draco reaches for his spectacles, and is surprised when Harry closes his eyes, tilting his head so that they slide off easier. Draco sets them carefully on the cabinet beside the bed, and next reaches very slowly for Harry's hands.

Harry unfurls at this, shifting sideways and stretching out, rolling so that he and Draco are touching from ankle to thigh, his head resting again on Draco's shoulder. He is still taking deep, measured breaths, and Draco tentatively rubs a hand along the side of Harry's ribs. He shivers and jerks, pressing his side into the bed to avoid Draco's hand, but he doesn't move away.

"No," Harry says again, "Just. Let me—for a minute."

"Alright," Draco says, "As long as you need." He means it for right now, but the way Harry focuses on him when he says this promises something much, much longer.

In a few minutes they have settled with hands clasped between them, Harry's forehead pressed to Draco's chin.

They wake up this way early in the morning. Draco has not been dreaming, because he has not for a very long time, but Harry jolts them both awake yelling, his sharp, knobbly knee slamming into Draco's shin.

"Fuck," he says groggily, remembering immediately who his bedmate is, and where they are. Harry has sat up and somehow lit the cluster of candles atop his dresser. He's fumbling next to them for his glasses.

Draco drags himself to full consciousness and watches as Harry stumbles out of bed and into the small adjoining bathroom. He doesn't fully close the door behind him, and the sound of retching twists Draco's stomach.

"Harry?" he calls, voice cracking. Harry coughs in reply, and retches again.

Draco stretches, bracing himself for the temporary pain in his feet as he stands, and heads to the kitchen. Harry keeps a small stock of anti-nausea potions in his icebox, mostly brewed by Draco himself, and Draco fetches one of these flasks and returns to the bedroom. He finds Harry leaning against the wall opposite the toilet, his dark skin shining with sweat. He hands over the flask, and Harry downs it in one.

He feels like very little has changed, except now he has the image—the _memory_ —of Harry with his lips around his cock, and Harry now reaches up to slip his fingers through Draco's. This is how they have behaved for months now, in absolute ease of each other. Only the touching is new. Draco wonders if this means they have been together, and what togetherness entails. He drops to the floor next to Harry, closing both his hands around Harry's.

"Nightmares," Harry croaks, completely unnecessarily.

Draco hums understanding. It can't even be six yet, and half of him wants to urge Harry back to bed. The other half is awash with concern for Harry, wondering what nightmares he's endured, if he's still seeing them. Harry, apparently, has baser concerns.

"We're naked," he says

"Yes," Draco agrees. "We are."

"About last night," Harry continues, and Draco feels his stomach drop completely out of existence, as if someone has vanished it. "I think—I'm sorry. I panicked."

"You warned me," Draco reminds him. Harry turns to him, scowling.

"And you're okay with me clamming up—panicking! Every time!"

Draco surveys him in the half light of the bathroom, eyebrows raised. Harry Potter is many admirable things, but "calm" is not a word Draco would ever apply to him. Nor is "reasonable," and definitely not "normal," so he doesn't understand why Harry expects to become these things suddenly. He doesn't think Harry will ever be these things, but he is compassionate and generous and he yells back when Draco shouts, has always done.

Draco happens to think these things are much more valuable. He thinks Harry will definitely be worth it, whatever it is.

"I'm okay with it," Draco tells him.

"Even if I never get better?"

"Harry," he says, becoming irritable. He is not a morning person. This is too early to be forced to deal with Harry Potter and His Innumerable Insecurities, so Draco just sighs elaborately and stands, forcing Harry to stand with him. He cannot tell Harry there is nothing wrong with him, or that this doesn’t bother him, or that it is not a hassle. It is a hassle, and it bothers him, and worries him, and he anticipates that however long they manage to hold themselves together, it will be difficult. Harry thinks there is something wrong with himself, besides, and Draco has learned that there is no way to change Harry Potter’s mind.

Despite the fact that Harry has just been retching into his toilet, Draco kisses him. Harry doesn't let it last, but after one final, searching look at Draco, he leads them back over to the bed.

"Go to sleep," Harry says.

"What about you?"

"You know I can't go back to sleep."

Draco does. Harry will not risk having another nightmare. They have barely let up since the end of the war, and Harry has expressed doubt that they will ever stop. "What will you do?" Draco asks.

Harry shrugs, and promises to wake him in time to get ready for work. He watches Draco climb onto the bed and settle in, and kisses him again, making an apologetic face afterwards. Draco is still drifting between sleep and waking when Harry returns to the room with his classroom discipline text.

He falls asleep with his head against Harry's hip, to the sound of turning pages, and he does not dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that I am a grey-A identified person writing a grey-A identified character! I am deeply and intimately aware of the different reasons for and degrees of asexuality, and the kind I have depicted Harry experiencing here is based loosely on my own. It is in no way intended to be misery porn or the end-all depiction of grey-Asexuality or whatever. It is very much written for my own catharsis. Also, the main (trilogy of) fic in the 'verse this belongs to is in progress. 
> 
> Also, the title is a Horse_ebooks quote.


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